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Alex Cooke
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Articles written by Alex Cooke

Five Things to Look for When Buying a Tripod

Ok, it's not the most exciting subject, but a good tripod is worth its weight in gold, and a bad one will leave you continually shaking your fist at the sky and cursing. Here are five things you should look for when deciding to purchase a tripod.

Five Simple But Effective Drone Video Techniques

Flying a drone often enables the possibility of getting some really unique and arresting shots, but it also takes a fair amount of skill or even a second operator on a dedicated camera controller to pull them off. These five simple shots will give you similarly excellent results with minimal effort.

Five Tips to Create Better Engagement With Your Talent

We talk about gear and how to take better shots or process your images all the time, but less often do we discuss the non-camera related side of photography, engaging with the subject, though it's obviously of the utmost importance. This helpful video gives you five tips to produce better engagement with your talent.

Fstoppers' Stills Review of the Canon 1D X Mark II

Canon released the 1D X Mark II last year, representing the next generation of its flagship model, a camera meant to be without compromise — top of the line capabilities, durability, and performance. As even consumer-level cameras reach sometimes stratospheric heights, the truly professional models have had to reach for even greater heights to continue to distinguish themselves. Read on to see where the 1D X Mark II fits in.

A Beginner's Guide to Moving From Natural Light to Studio Light

Perhaps one of the biggest rites of passage for a photographer is gaining proficiency with artificial light. It can seem a bit daunting at first, but once you get some basic principles down, it's really not that hard, and you'll greatly expand your photographic capabilities in the process. Dive into this great video to get started.

Quickly Navigate Through Photoshop Layers Using the Layer Search Function

If you do a lot of layers-intensive work in Photoshop, you know that sometimes, navigating using just that little panel on the right can get a bit cumbersome. However, Photoshop has a built-in feature to help you search and filter layers, and this helpful tutorial shows you just how to use it.

One Camera, One Lens, One Format: A Landscape Photography Challenge

As photographers, we generally tend to overpack our gear bags, because it feels much better to have too much equipment at our disposal rather than too little. At the same time, though, too many choices can be paralyzing. This great video goes the other direction by limiting the bag to one camera and lens, then restricting the shots to one crop. It's a neat exercise to invigorate creativity.

Using an iPad Pro as Part of a Photography Workflow

I've been waiting for the day that a tablet could capably replace a dedicated laptop for photography work since I bought the original iPad in 2010. That day seems to be closer than ever with the latest round of iPad Pros. Check out this review of their ability to provide a dedicated workflow for photographers.

How to Use Selective Color as a Finishing Touch on Your Photos

Getting colors that are vibrant and pop without being gaudy is a challenge in which many landscape photographers are constantly engaged. This helpful tutorial shows you how to use selective color adjustment layers to subtly give your images that desired look.

Improve Your Photo Compositions With Simplification and Negative Space

Both Mozart and Debussy said that music is the space between notes, alluding to the fact that sound is meaningless without silence to contextualize it. There is of course a visual analog, and considering and incorporating it carefully into your images can vastly improve the impact of your compositions.

What's Been in a Photographer's Bag Over a 30-Year Span

We've all see those "what's in my bag" videos on YouTube, but this one was particularly interesting to me, as it's a fun walk through camera history. Check out how one professional landscape photographer's gear bag has evolved over the course of three decades.

10 Things I Learned Shooting My First Professional Baseball Game

"Keep your head down and always know where the ball is. It hurts when you get hit." And with that, I was off and running. Here's what it was like stepping out of portraits and events and into the world of professional sports photography.

How to Use the Puppet Warp Tool in Photoshop

The Puppet Warp tool is one of the most powerful methods to manipulate people, objects, or whatever you please in Photoshop. If you want to learn how to stretch, bend, or contort your subjects, give this helpful video a quick viewing!

A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Gorgeous Wine Bottle Product Shot

This incredibly well thought out and carefully executed shot is an awesome lesson in not only designing an intriguing product photography shot that tells the right story, but also in bringing it to fruition. Check out this step-by-step video that walks you through the entire process.

Lots of Canon Lenses Likely Coming at the End of August [Rumor]

I think few people can argue that Sigma hasn't been killing it lately, particularly with their 85mm f/1.4 Art and borderline audacious 135mm f/1.8 Art lenses turning in mostly rave reviews. It was only a matter of time before the big manufacturers responded, and from the looks of things, Canon is preparing to do just that.